Principal Engineer

Locus The Software Factory

Principal Engineer

Who We Are

We're Locus. We move the world's goods.

Our algorithms have optimized over 1 billion deliveries. We're the enterprise TMS trusted by IKEA, Unilever, UPS and some of the largest supply chains on the planet. Backed by Ingka Group (IKEA's parent), we're building  a composable, multi-modal transportation management system that's redefining logistics technology.

We're not hiring to fill seats. We're hiring builders who build for other builders.

What You'll Do

You are among the most senior technical leaders at Locus. You pair deep technical expertise with architectural leadership across multiple systems. Here's what that looks like day to day:

Own the architecture, design, and delivery of multiple large-scale distributed systems that form the backbone of Locus's products.

Lead by example - write high-quality code, review designs, and set technical standards for engineering excellence.

Mentor and coach engineers across levels through design reviews, code reviews, and architectural guidance, help them grow as strong technical contributors.

Collaborate across engineering, product, and data teams to identify and resolve complex technical dependencies and ensure cohesive system evolution.

Drive performance, scalability, and reliability improvements, set benchmarks for operational excellence.

Be hands-on and deeply curious, dive into system internals, investigate bottlenecks, and lead from the front when technical depth is required.

Stay current with emerging technologies and evaluate their potential for adoption in Locus's ecosystem.

Contribute to technical hiring,  identify and attract top-tier engineering talent.

Represent Locus in internal and external forums, sharing engineering best practices and technical innovations.

What You Bring

Must-Haves

10+ years of experience building and scaling products in fast-paced, high-growth environments.

Strong CS fundamentals, data structures, algorithms, and system design.

Proven track record of architecting and delivering distributed systems, microservices, and high-performance cloud-scale applications.

Deep expertise in Java, Spring/Spring Boot, and microservices architecture.

Solid understanding of concurrency, multithreading, and fault-tolerant system design.

Experience working in cloud environments (AWS/GCP) with modern CI/CD and observability tooling.

Passion for writing clean, maintainable code and conducting thorough code and design reviews.

Familiarity with modern AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Cursor or similar) to accelerate development workflows.

Prior experience in SaaS product development and startup environments is a strong plus.

Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, able to align teams around a shared technical vision.

Self-starter who thrives on solving complex problems at scale. You don't wait for permission.

Strong Signals - We Actively Look for These

Degrees don't tell us much. These do:

You've architected systems that have scaled across multiple orders of magnitude and you've lived through the failures.

You've made technical bets that changed the direction of an engineering org.

You've built something on your own time, open source, side project, internal tool.

You've contributed to a top open-source project.

You've filed a patent or published research.

You've written technical content others reference, or spoken at a conference.

You've competed in or completed something grueling ultra-marathon, Ironman, competitive programming, hackathon wins.

We don't fill seats. We hire builders who build for other builders

What We Don't Care About

Which college you went to. Seriously.

Whether your resume has Big Tech logos.

How many years you've held exactly this job title.

We care about what you built, why you couldn't stop, and how you think.

The Stack

Languages: Java, Kotlin, Python, TypeScript, Spring / Spring Boot Infrastructure: AWS, Kubernetes, Kafka, PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch

Data / ML: Spark, Airflow, optimization engines (routing, ETA, slotting) 

Scale: 350+ deployments · 30+ countries · billions of deliveries · high-volume daily computations

Why Locus is different: 

This isn't a perks list. It's a contract between Locus and people who build.

01. Inference Compute Budget - For Builders Who Ship: Every engineer gets $5,000/year in AI/LLM inference credits, The budget is the baseline, you need more we have it for you!

02. Patent Premium - Your Name on It. Permanently: File a patent at Locus, your name stays on it for Eternity, Check our Patents and patents holders

03. Lifetime Royalty Program - Build the Builders: Build an internal tool that automates a process or makes us more efficient? Locus pays you a royalty, not just while you're here, but even after you leave.

04. Excellence Beyond Code Ironman, ultra-marathon, national-level sport, FIDE 2000+, we see these as signals of craft, grit, and finishing. They matter to us.

05. Open Source Bounty Active contributor to a top-1000 GitHub repo? Joining bonus. Active maintainers get dedicated 20% time to keep contributing.

06. Conference Speaker Fund Accepted to speak at a global conference? We cover travel, registration, and stay. No questions asked.

07. 1 Billion Deliveries on Your Resume: You can truthfully say: "My code optimized 1B+ deliveries across 30+ countries." We verify it.

08. Alumni Network That Doesn't Forget You: Leaving Locus? You still get a reduced compute budget ($1K/yr), alumni summit access, referral bonuses, and a fast-track to re-hire.

Apply?

Send us:

Your GitHub / portfolio / anything you've built - required. More important than your resume.

A one-liner on why Locus interests you.

Email: [email protected] 

"We don't hire the best people and tell them what to build. We hire builders and get out of their way."  - Locus Engineering